Most distributions include the documentation with any software packages distributed. Without a GPL or free software license on the documentation, the distributions must either:
(a) comply with the license,
(b) provide a third-party download (like Adobe with Flash), or
(c) stop including MySQL.
Given the existence of MariaDB, it might be simplest to stop including MySQL in the distribution.
If you use a hyper-cube, then the processors on the outside edges have no one to talk to. For a single dimension example, imagine a series of processors where every processor in a line has two communication links, one to talk to its neighbour on the left, and one to talk to its neighbour on the right. This is great for all the processors in the middle of the arrangement. However, in a one-dimensional straight-line arrangement, the processors on the end are either missing a left (or a right) neighbour. The solution to this problem is to connect the processors on the ends to each other, making the line a circle or ring.
A one-dimensional hypercube is a line. In supercomputing, it is often desirable to avoid any topology where the there is a flat (non-connected surface) on the side of the cube. Connecting the opposite edges of the cube to each other results in the torus topology in higher dimensions, and the ring topology in 1-D. For a picture of this effect, see the torus interconnect article on wikipedia.
While it is theoretically possible preferable to have really high-order interconnects, in practice wiring considerations limit the maximum number of interconnects. As such, most practical torus architectures are limited in the number of neighbours they can support.
FYI: The tree architecture is avoided in supercomputing for a different reason. Typically, each node has the fastest interconnect that can be provided, as interconnect speed affects system speed for many algorithms. Imagine if each leaf at the bottom of the tree needs 1X bandwidth. Then the parent node one-element up needs 2X bandwidth. The next parent node up requires 4X bandwidth, and so on. With tens of thousands of nodes in the supercomputer, it quickly becomes impossible to make fabricate interconnects fast enough for the parent nodes of the tree.
A practical application of the tree problem occurs on small Ethernet clusters. It is easy to make a 16-node 10Gb Ethernet cluster, because standard switches are readily available. As the system approaches hundreds of nodes, it becomes difficult to find fast enough switches. Even if the data communication speed to each node is reduced to 1Gb, for sufficiently large numbers of nodes, the backplane switches will be overwhelmed.
In Canada, the HDTV transition has been an usability disaster. The cable boxes are simply to complex. If someone puts an easy-to-use HDTV-over-internet product together - the cable companies are dead. It might take a while, but almost anyone can put together a device with more commercial appeal than a Canadian Cable Company or Telco.
My Dad has Alzheimers and cannot remember anything. The Cable companies' HDTV remote is impossible to use. It has two different methods of adjusting volume. Powering on/off the TV takes 4 button presses. 6 different buttons can be used to change channels in various ways, and each way is inconsistent. For instance, pressing "up" will either increase or decrease the channel number depending on which up-button is pressed. With the old analog TVs, things were so much simpler: Power On, Volume Up/Down, Channel Up/Down - easy.
In comparison, an Apple TV box has a much simpler user interface. However, the main problem with Apple TV is that it won't receive cable channels. If I could purchase a set top box that simply displayed a few key channels - then it would be game over.
The US will arrest people on US territory or in international waters using whatever methods they can. For instance, in Operation Goldenrod a suspect was lured onto a yacht, and then taken to international waters. He was interrogated aboard US Navy ships, and returned to the US via an aircraft carrier.
Additionally, under the Ker-Frisbie doctrine people can be prosecuted regardless of the legality of the method of their extradition. For example, the DEA hired Trent Tompkins (a private citizen) to kidnap Alvarez-Machain in Mexico and return him to the United States, where he was later tried over Mexico's objections.
Finally, state police can act outside of their home state to arrest someone and bring them to trial. In the case of Shirley Collins, the accused was kidnapped in Chicago (illegally) by Michigan police, brought to trial and convicted.
Microsoft is very cleverly following the Harkonnen plan from Dune. Under pressure from the government, Bill Gates needed to leave Microsoft. As such, Harkonnen's brought in "The Beast Rabban" (Steve Balmer).
Rabban's job was to so badly mismanage everything, that anything would be preferable to the continued domination of Steve Balmer. Then, at the appointed moment, Bill Gates can be brought back to rescue Microsoft and save Dune. The regulators will accept Bill Gates, because anything is better than Windows 8.
The problem with the Harkonnen plan is that the Harkonnens assume that only they control the Spice of Earnings - Microsoft Windows and Office. However, secretly, there is growing competition, in the form of the Fremen (free men). These free men believe in open software and exist in vast numbers.
So far, the Harkonnen's have discredited the Fremen leaders - Richard Stalman and Linus Torvalds - by accusing them of being bearded men. However, a legion of newly trained Fremen, familiar with the open source wierding way, have secretly slipped Linux onto billions of small square Android devices. These Android devices are scattered all over, like grains of sand in the dessert.
What is the plan for these Android devices? Will the people be free? Will the Harkonnen plan work? Will another power arise?
30.65 petaflops is about double the 17.6 petaflops of the current top performer on the TOP 500 list.
Of course, the devil will be in the details. It is easy to deliver high peak scores in supercomputing, and more difficult to hit high average scores. Also, the current list is from November, and it is possible that the American supercomputers are newer / faster / better too.
It depends if you are trying to anneal a proper silicon crystal (like the grandparent poster's tech from the 70's or 80's) or the cheapest and thinnest piece of silicon ever made (today's tech.)
To a certain extent, cost and reliability are opposites. If you reduce costs too low, then quality must suffer. Hence, why the original poster (me) expects unreliable cells, and the grandparent poster's experience with old but highly reliable cells. Different production techniques to reduce costs have dramatically affect the expected long-term reliablity of the solar cells.
Incidentally, very good solar cells are still being made for expensive applications (like space). It is just the inexpensive and easy to obtain cells are much less reliable.
Firstly, solar cells traditionally lose a large percentage of their performance after the first couple of years of use. If the small assemblies are experiencing a 50% power loss after 2 years, then achieving 50% after 7 years on a high-quality large assembly is reasonable. I'm not really sure why people are expecting solar cells to last 25 years.
Secondly, a roof is a rough place to put a solar cell. It is continuously exposed to sun (ironically), which breaks down many plastic coatings. Additionally, the optical surfaces are affected by abrasion from snow, rain, and wind-borne debris. This abrasion rapidly breaks down optical surfaces, which are needed for solar cells. Roofers are very familiar with the abrasion problem - each and every 25 year shingle does not last 25 years. Additionally, popular shingles are made from tar, felt and rock, as opposed to high-tech plastics, for valid mechanical and photo-chemical reasons. Mechanically and photo-chemically, an array of small plastic optical things will degrade significantly over 25 years. Even high-quality optical materials, like glass windows, degrade in roof-top applications over 25 years.
I'm not really sure why people expect solar cells to last 25 years in uncontrolled and exposed applications. Seven years is a tough specification. Two years is realistic, and that sounds like what some of these systems are actually actually achieving.
From a design review: "I don't like pressing Start to stop things. There should be two buttons: Start and Stop. Where would you get the idea that pressing Start to Stop was a good idea? (looks at down computer) Oh, from Windows,..."
Non-obvious stop functions are a bad idea, and this becomes very obvious when dealing with expensive and dangerous machinery. Many safety standard bans require obvious stop buttons. Critical functions should be obvious and easy. When the stop button is non-obvious, it probably means other problems exist with the design too.
Saddam Hussein thought he had chemical weapons, and definitely wanted them.
George Bush said he had chemical weapons.
Most of the worlds intelligence agencies, including the CIA, were quietly saying they were no chemical weapons. Some of these agencies had their results taken out of context by their superiors.
If I run outside my house, stark naked, on a city street, carrying a fake gun, screaming "I have a gun!!!" The police will probably shoot me. After a while, that was what happened to Saddam Hussein.
Cars from the mid-70's to mid-80's will easily outperform cars from today in terms of real-life fuel economy, when cars with similar EPA ratings are compared. Real-life fuel economy has been declining for a long time now.
The reason for this is that modern emission controls have made it possible to put large engines inside vehicles and still meet the CAFE fuel economy ratings. People *like* large engines. They like the acceleration. They like massive vehicles like the Ford Excursion. The statistics have been long available, the average American car has been growing in size for a long-time.
Cars from the 70's and 80's were underpowered. This forced people to save on gas in real-life conditions by not letting them accelerate hard (which uses lots of gas), and often by limiting the cars top speed. Cars use a great deal of gas when they accelerate hard, and go faster than 55 mph.
While attempting its first overseas deployment to the Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, on 11 February 2007, six F-22s of 27th Fighter Squadron flying from Hickam AFB, Hawaii, experienced multiple system failures while crossing the International Date Line (or 180th meridian of longitude) caused by software errors.[230][231][232] The fighters were able to return to Hawaii by following tanker aircraft.
It's tough to reliably detect low-level background repetitive noise without detecting all sorts of nearby domestic appliances, car engines, and such. In the modern city, we live with *alot* of noise.
Now, if the problem is to detect jet engines in rural areas featuring mountainous terrain, then I think I know what the point of this project is.
In Canada, taking one year off at reduced salary with the birth of a child is pretty normal. I think school teachers even have a way to take two or three years off, some of which are without pay. With certain limitations, you even have the right to return to your old job when it is all over.
Wish I had mod points. I have seen the exact same graph as "what you need to do to become a tenured professor."
As a career strategy, aiming to be a tenured professor is a very bad idea, because almost everyone that tries must fail. It's great for the few that make it, but they are the exceptions.
This technology will not significantly affect memory latency, because DRAM latency is almost entirely driven by the row and column address selection inside the DRAM. The additional controller chip will likely increase average latency. However, this affect will be lessened because the higher bandwidth memory controllers will fill the processors cache more quickly. Also, the new DRAM chips will likely be fabricated on a denser manufacturing process, with many parallel columns, which will result in a minor improvement in speed.
All told, this new technology will not change the fact that modern CPU's spend about 50% of their clock cycles waiting for data.
The contradiction that many people noticed in my religious school was this: Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain killed Abel, meaning one son was left. Then, to quote from Chapter 4:
4:16 So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
4:17 Cain made love to his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch.
If Adam and Eve were the first two people, and they had only one surviving son, then where did the city of people, the wife, and the land of Nod come from?
Criminals are stupid. Long prison sentences are pointless because criminals lack the intellectual skills to figure out that they will be caught. If a criminal lacks the intellectual ability to avoid doing crimes because they will get caught, how can they possibly appreciate the deterrent value of a long prison sentence?
If you break the statistics down by type of crime, then you find that a huge percentage of criminals are addicts with and without FAS, and have no effective decision making capability. These people chronically make the same minor mistakes, largely harm themselves, and justice should be about managing the harm they do to society at the minimum social cost.
Some people are sociopaths. The higher functioning sociopaths have learned to call their lawyer before doing anything truly evil. As a result, they can hold down careers in business, and manage to not commit crimes. These people are the "boss from hell", and a relatively few cause a great many stories.
Some people are truly sick. Believe it or not, the justice system is surprisingly efficient at locking up serial killers for life. However, a serial killer will not be deterred by a long prison sentence. Serial killers experience an uncontrollable desire to kill. Lacking self-control, prison time for serial killers is simply about keeping them off the streets.
Long prison sentences are only effective for a small population of criminals that the justice system will lock up for a long-time anyway. Everyone else is either too stupid to know the difference, or smart enough to stay out of jail. Deterrence only works against rational people who would not commit the crime anyway.
This used to be done, back in the early dails of email and usenet. If someone was sending spam, someone else would send their server 10,000 email messages and knock if off line.
It doesn't really work anymore:
a) Users are dumb - they don't even know their account/computer has been compromised, and might not care even if it has.
b) One mail server serves millions of users. That means millions of people pay the price for the actions of one bozo.
c) Revenge mails look like spam. It gets the sender blacklisted.
Canonical appears to be developing in the same way as Corel did. They develop one program that was good (CorelDraw/Ubuntu), and then decide they have the software development smarts to sell a complete O/S and application stack. At one point, Corel was developing both Corel Linux and the Corel Office Suite to compete with Microsoft. The result was a whole bunch of hastily written software that failed to work properly. It was a disaster.
Canonical seems to be just losing focus, and drowining in the resulting plethora of projects. What was the point of Unity if not to enter the mobile space?
The resulting mess is a real shame. I think Linux Mint proves that Ubuntu could be great.
If the current drone craze takes off, the Navy aircraft carrier will be far from obsolete. Those drones need somewhere to refuel and reload, and an aircraft carrier is the easiest thing to keep in theatre.
Slashdot Mirror
Most distributions include the documentation with any software packages distributed. Without a GPL or free software license on the documentation, the distributions must either:
(a) comply with the license,
(b) provide a third-party download (like Adobe with Flash), or
(c) stop including MySQL.
Given the existence of MariaDB, it might be simplest to stop including MySQL in the distribution.
If you use a hyper-cube, then the processors on the outside edges have no one to talk to. For a single dimension example, imagine a series of processors where every processor in a line has two communication links, one to talk to its neighbour on the left, and one to talk to its neighbour on the right. This is great for all the processors in the middle of the arrangement. However, in a one-dimensional straight-line arrangement, the processors on the end are either missing a left (or a right) neighbour. The solution to this problem is to connect the processors on the ends to each other, making the line a circle or ring.
A one-dimensional hypercube is a line. In supercomputing, it is often desirable to avoid any topology where the there is a flat (non-connected surface) on the side of the cube. Connecting the opposite edges of the cube to each other results in the torus topology in higher dimensions, and the ring topology in 1-D. For a picture of this effect, see the torus interconnect article on wikipedia.
While it is theoretically possible preferable to have really high-order interconnects, in practice wiring considerations limit the maximum number of interconnects. As such, most practical torus architectures are limited in the number of neighbours they can support.
FYI: The tree architecture is avoided in supercomputing for a different reason. Typically, each node has the fastest interconnect that can be provided, as interconnect speed affects system speed for many algorithms. Imagine if each leaf at the bottom of the tree needs 1X bandwidth. Then the parent node one-element up needs 2X bandwidth. The next parent node up requires 4X bandwidth, and so on. With tens of thousands of nodes in the supercomputer, it quickly becomes impossible to make fabricate interconnects fast enough for the parent nodes of the tree.
A practical application of the tree problem occurs on small Ethernet clusters. It is easy to make a 16-node 10Gb Ethernet cluster, because standard switches are readily available. As the system approaches hundreds of nodes, it becomes difficult to find fast enough switches. Even if the data communication speed to each node is reduced to 1Gb, for sufficiently large numbers of nodes, the backplane switches will be overwhelmed.
In Canada, the HDTV transition has been an usability disaster. The cable boxes are simply to complex. If someone puts an easy-to-use HDTV-over-internet product together - the cable companies are dead. It might take a while, but almost anyone can put together a device with more commercial appeal than a Canadian Cable Company or Telco.
My Dad has Alzheimers and cannot remember anything. The Cable companies' HDTV remote is impossible to use. It has two different methods of adjusting volume. Powering on/off the TV takes 4 button presses. 6 different buttons can be used to change channels in various ways, and each way is inconsistent. For instance, pressing "up" will either increase or decrease the channel number depending on which up-button is pressed. With the old analog TVs, things were so much simpler: Power On, Volume Up/Down, Channel Up/Down - easy.
In comparison, an Apple TV box has a much simpler user interface. However, the main problem with Apple TV is that it won't receive cable channels. If I could purchase a set top box that simply displayed a few key channels - then it would be game over.
The US will arrest people on US territory or in international waters using whatever methods they can. For instance, in Operation Goldenrod a suspect was lured onto a yacht, and then taken to international waters. He was interrogated aboard US Navy ships, and returned to the US via an aircraft carrier.
Additionally, under the Ker-Frisbie doctrine people can be prosecuted regardless of the legality of the method of their extradition. For example, the DEA hired Trent Tompkins (a private citizen) to kidnap Alvarez-Machain in Mexico and return him to the United States, where he was later tried over Mexico's objections.
Finally, state police can act outside of their home state to arrest someone and bring them to trial. In the case of Shirley Collins, the accused was kidnapped in Chicago (illegally) by Michigan police, brought to trial and convicted.
When Microsoft marketing attacks Linux, they tend to use half-truths ...
Microsoft is very cleverly following the Harkonnen plan from Dune. Under pressure from the government, Bill Gates needed to leave Microsoft. As such, Harkonnen's brought in "The Beast Rabban" (Steve Balmer).
Rabban's job was to so badly mismanage everything, that anything would be preferable to the continued domination of Steve Balmer. Then, at the appointed moment, Bill Gates can be brought back to rescue Microsoft and save Dune. The regulators will accept Bill Gates, because anything is better than Windows 8.
The problem with the Harkonnen plan is that the Harkonnens assume that only they control the Spice of Earnings - Microsoft Windows and Office. However, secretly, there is growing competition, in the form of the Fremen (free men). These free men believe in open software and exist in vast numbers.
So far, the Harkonnen's have discredited the Fremen leaders - Richard Stalman and Linus Torvalds - by accusing them of being bearded men. However, a legion of newly trained Fremen, familiar with the open source wierding way, have secretly slipped Linux onto billions of small square Android devices. These Android devices are scattered all over, like grains of sand in the dessert.
What is the plan for these Android devices? Will the people be free? Will the Harkonnen plan work? Will another power arise?
Stay tuned ...
30.65 petaflops is about double the 17.6 petaflops of the current top performer on the TOP 500 list.
Of course, the devil will be in the details. It is easy to deliver high peak scores in supercomputing, and more difficult to hit high average scores. Also, the current list is from November, and it is possible that the American supercomputers are newer / faster / better too.
It depends if you are trying to anneal a proper silicon crystal (like the grandparent poster's tech from the 70's or 80's) or the cheapest and thinnest piece of silicon ever made (today's tech.)
To a certain extent, cost and reliability are opposites. If you reduce costs too low, then quality must suffer. Hence, why the original poster (me) expects unreliable cells, and the grandparent poster's experience with old but highly reliable cells. Different production techniques to reduce costs have dramatically affect the expected long-term reliablity of the solar cells.
Incidentally, very good solar cells are still being made for expensive applications (like space). It is just the inexpensive and easy to obtain cells are much less reliable.
Firstly, solar cells traditionally lose a large percentage of their performance after the first couple of years of use. If the small assemblies are experiencing a 50% power loss after 2 years, then achieving 50% after 7 years on a high-quality large assembly is reasonable. I'm not really sure why people are expecting solar cells to last 25 years.
Secondly, a roof is a rough place to put a solar cell. It is continuously exposed to sun (ironically), which breaks down many plastic coatings. Additionally, the optical surfaces are affected by abrasion from snow, rain, and wind-borne debris. This abrasion rapidly breaks down optical surfaces, which are needed for solar cells. Roofers are very familiar with the abrasion problem - each and every 25 year shingle does not last 25 years. Additionally, popular shingles are made from tar, felt and rock, as opposed to high-tech plastics, for valid mechanical and photo-chemical reasons. Mechanically and photo-chemically, an array of small plastic optical things will degrade significantly over 25 years. Even high-quality optical materials, like glass windows, degrade in roof-top applications over 25 years.
I'm not really sure why people expect solar cells to last 25 years in uncontrolled and exposed applications. Seven years is a tough specification. Two years is realistic, and that sounds like what some of these systems are actually actually achieving.
From a design review: "I don't like pressing Start to stop things. There should be two buttons: Start and Stop. Where would you get the idea that pressing Start to Stop was a good idea? (looks at down computer) Oh, from Windows, ..."
Non-obvious stop functions are a bad idea, and this becomes very obvious when dealing with expensive and dangerous machinery. Many safety standard bans require obvious stop buttons. Critical functions should be obvious and easy. When the stop button is non-obvious, it probably means other problems exist with the design too.
Saddam Hussein thought he had chemical weapons, and definitely wanted them.
George Bush said he had chemical weapons.
Most of the worlds intelligence agencies, including the CIA, were quietly saying they were no chemical weapons. Some of these agencies had their results taken out of context by their superiors.
If I run outside my house, stark naked, on a city street, carrying a fake gun, screaming "I have a gun!!!" The police will probably shoot me. After a while, that was what happened to Saddam Hussein.
Cars from the mid-70's to mid-80's will easily outperform cars from today in terms of real-life fuel economy, when cars with similar EPA ratings are compared. Real-life fuel economy has been declining for a long time now.
The reason for this is that modern emission controls have made it possible to put large engines inside vehicles and still meet the CAFE fuel economy ratings. People *like* large engines. They like the acceleration. They like massive vehicles like the Ford Excursion. The statistics have been long available, the average American car has been growing in size for a long-time.
Cars from the 70's and 80's were underpowered. This forced people to save on gas in real-life conditions by not letting them accelerate hard (which uses lots of gas), and often by limiting the cars top speed. Cars use a great deal of gas when they accelerate hard, and go faster than 55 mph.
From wikipedia. The references are:
230 "F-22 Squadron Shot Down by the International Date Line." Defense Industry Daily, 1 March 2007. Retrieved: 31 August 2011.
231 "This Week at War". CNN, 24 February 2007.
232 Johnson, Maj. Dani. "Raptors arrive at Kadena." US Air Force, 19 February 2007. Retrieved: 9 May 2010.
It's tough to reliably detect low-level background repetitive noise without detecting all sorts of nearby domestic appliances, car engines, and such. In the modern city, we live with *alot* of noise.
Now, if the problem is to detect jet engines in rural areas featuring mountainous terrain, then I think I know what the point of this project is.
In Canada, taking one year off at reduced salary with the birth of a child is pretty normal. I think school teachers even have a way to take two or three years off, some of which are without pay. With certain limitations, you even have the right to return to your old job when it is all over.
Somehow, i suspect British Telecom was smart enough to get the US version of this patent, and software patents are fair game in the US.
It took me a bit to try and figure out what that joke was about. However, once I did, I laughed, hard.
Wish I had mod points. I have seen the exact same graph as "what you need to do to become a tenured professor."
As a career strategy, aiming to be a tenured professor is a very bad idea, because almost everyone that tries must fail. It's great for the few that make it, but they are the exceptions.
This technology will not significantly affect memory latency, because DRAM latency is almost entirely driven by the row and column address selection inside the DRAM. The additional controller chip will likely increase average latency. However, this affect will be lessened because the higher bandwidth memory controllers will fill the processors cache more quickly. Also, the new DRAM chips will likely be fabricated on a denser manufacturing process, with many parallel columns, which will result in a minor improvement in speed.
All told, this new technology will not change the fact that modern CPU's spend about 50% of their clock cycles waiting for data.
If Adam and Eve were the first two people, and they had only one surviving son, then where did the city of people, the wife, and the land of Nod come from?
Criminals are stupid. Long prison sentences are pointless because criminals lack the intellectual skills to figure out that they will be caught. If a criminal lacks the intellectual ability to avoid doing crimes because they will get caught, how can they possibly appreciate the deterrent value of a long prison sentence?
If you break the statistics down by type of crime, then you find that a huge percentage of criminals are addicts with and without FAS, and have no effective decision making capability. These people chronically make the same minor mistakes, largely harm themselves, and justice should be about managing the harm they do to society at the minimum social cost.
Some people are sociopaths. The higher functioning sociopaths have learned to call their lawyer before doing anything truly evil. As a result, they can hold down careers in business, and manage to not commit crimes. These people are the "boss from hell", and a relatively few cause a great many stories.
Some people are truly sick. Believe it or not, the justice system is surprisingly efficient at locking up serial killers for life. However, a serial killer will not be deterred by a long prison sentence. Serial killers experience an uncontrollable desire to kill. Lacking self-control, prison time for serial killers is simply about keeping them off the streets.
Long prison sentences are only effective for a small population of criminals that the justice system will lock up for a long-time anyway. Everyone else is either too stupid to know the difference, or smart enough to stay out of jail. Deterrence only works against rational people who would not commit the crime anyway.
This used to be done, back in the early dails of email and usenet. If someone was sending spam, someone else would send their server 10,000 email messages and knock if off line.
It doesn't really work anymore:
a) Users are dumb - they don't even know their account/computer has been compromised, and might not care even if it has.
b) One mail server serves millions of users. That means millions of people pay the price for the actions of one bozo.
c) Revenge mails look like spam. It gets the sender blacklisted.
With a sufficiently small sample size, 100% accuracy is easy to achieve. Confidence limits on the other hand ...
Canonical appears to be developing in the same way as Corel did. They develop one program that was good (CorelDraw/Ubuntu), and then decide they have the software development smarts to sell a complete O/S and application stack. At one point, Corel was developing both Corel Linux and the Corel Office Suite to compete with Microsoft. The result was a whole bunch of hastily written software that failed to work properly. It was a disaster.
Canonical seems to be just losing focus, and drowining in the resulting plethora of projects. What was the point of Unity if not to enter the mobile space?
The resulting mess is a real shame. I think Linux Mint proves that Ubuntu could be great.
If the current drone craze takes off, the Navy aircraft carrier will be far from obsolete. Those drones need somewhere to refuel and reload, and an aircraft carrier is the easiest thing to keep in theatre.